CTO News

This Blind Spot is Limiting Caribbean Tourism Potential

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (2 Nov. 2018) – A secret to unlock the full potential of Caribbean tourism may be hidden in plain sight. That is according to Tara Tvedt-Pearson, a certified strengths coach at Gallup, who will present a solution at the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO)’s 9th Tourism Human Resources Conference in the Cayman Islands from 28-30 November, 2018.

“Our innate talents and strengths represent our most direct path to our success. The problem, however, is that most people can’t accurately identify their own strengths and therefore can’t intentionally use them,” said Tvedt-Pearson.

The message will come as an integral component of the conference theme, ‘Building a Resilient, High-performing & Sustainable Caribbean Tourism Workforce for Global Competitiveness’. Tvedt-Pearson will present a masterclass on ‘Discover Your Strengths, Unlock Your Potential’ on Thursday 29 November.

“Unfortunately, when it comes to people development, most organisations across most cultures are operating from a mindset of weakness fixing. We identify areas of improvement and create annual development improvement plans for our employees even though we hired them for their strengths!” said Tvedt-Pearson.

Tvedt-Pearson has a background in human resources, psychology, and certification in project management which brings an ideal blend and balance to her coaching. Her work focuses on performance and by agreeing on measurements of success upfront, a clear scope and strategy is created for arriving at success.

“To help individuals and organisations worldwide harness the power of strengths, global management consulting company Gallup created the Clifton StrengthsFinder, an assessment that helps people discover and describe their talents. By revealing the ways in which each individual most naturally thinks, feels, and behaves, the assessment can help people identify and build on the areas in which they have the most potential to grow and succeed,” said Tvedt-Pearson.

Participants in the session will have the opportunity to discover their individual innate talents and the contributions they bring to their organisations, as well as understand what impact a strengths-based development approach -a “people solution” – can have to their business and bottom line. As a Gallup certified strengths coach, Tvedt-Pearson regularly helps individuals, leaders, teams, and organisations link their innate talents to specific goals and objectives, facilitate growth and development areas, and boost engagement.

The end goal is building a sustained competitive advantage. “Companies within the tourism sector that focus on measuring and managing employee engagement can withstand tough economic times and gain the competitive advantage that will keep them moving forward,” she said.

The CTO 9th Tourism Human Resources Conference seeks to provide an exciting and educational forum for human resource professionals to gain new knowledge and acquire the necessary skills to help them achieve excellent performance in their organizations. It also discusses pertinent issues impacting on, and relating to the human resource element of tourism in the region; exposes human resource practitioners to good tourism practices in a tourism environment, and provides an opportunity for professional networking.

The conference is sponsored by the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism and Dart, the Cayman Islands-headquartered global organisation whose portfolio of companies include real estate, hospitality, retail, entertainment, finance and biotech

For further details on the conference, including how to register, visit https://www.onecaribbean.org/events-calendar/tourism-hr-conference-2018/. And for a welcome message from minister of tourism Moses Kirkconnell, click here.